Abstract
The ability to identify others’ actions and intentions, “action understanding,” is crucial for successful social interaction. Under direct accounts, action understanding takes place without the involvement of inferential processes, a claim that has yet to be tested using behavioural measures. Using a dual-task paradigm, the present study aimed to establish whether the identification of others’ actions and intentions depends on automatic or inferential processing, by manipulating working memory load during performance of a task designed to target the identification of actions and intentions. Experiment 1 tested a novel action understanding task targeting action identification and intention identification. This task was then combined with two working memory manipulations (cognitive: Experiment 2; perceptual: Experiment 3) to determine whether action identification and intention identification are disrupted by concurrent cognitive or perceptual load. Both action identification and intention identification were impaired by concurrent cognitive and perceptual processing, indicating that action understanding requires additional perceptual and cognitive resources. These findings contradict a direct account of action understanding.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 70-83 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology |
Volume | 76 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 20 Jan 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust (Grant No. PLP-2015-019 to C.C.).
Publisher Copyright:
© Experimental Psychology Society 2022.
Keywords
- Action understanding
- cognitive processing
- dual task
- mirror neurons
- perceptual processing
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Physiology
- Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- General Psychology
- Physiology (medical)